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Happy International No Diet Day!

Hey, it’s International No Diet Day! Of course, we strive to make EVERY day No Diet Day, but if you’ve been teetering on the edge, today is the day to try it out for 24 hours and see how you function when you make peace with food. Or maybe it’s time to spread the word to some friends, or post a flyer next to the stats for your office “Biggest Loser” competition. Or maybe it’s just a day to eat a big piece of cake.

Or, you know, maybe it’s a day to eat a big piece of tofu. Posting about this initially made me feel a little weird about my breakfast, which I am eating right now and which is cottage cheese and some very gorgeous fruit. But then I thought, hey, isn’t this just another reason to resent the diet industry? Dieting has reinscribed excellent food like fruit and cottage cheese and spinach into Virtuous Diet Food, to the degree where it’s hard for a proud fatty to eat it without feeling a little furtive, like she has to make excuses. To the degree where people who have grown up in diet culture actually assume they don’t like really amazing food, just because its good-for-you reputation must mean it’s officially No Fun. (Of course, it’s entirely kosher to genuinely dislike food that’s also considered diet food, but I know plenty of people who turn their nose up at anything that’s supposed to be “healthy” because it smacks to them of deprivation.) Or they eat it because they think they’ve gotta get some virtue down their gullets, instead of because it tastes amazing and gives them energy. Fuck that — INDD is a day when food has no moral weight. I love cottage cheese (and if you think you don’t, give it another shot without thinking of it as a Diet Food), and I love chocolate chip cookies, and I might very well eat both today. Though not at the same time. And neither will make me bad or good, or a Typical Fat Person, or a Traitor to the Cause, or anything except a hungry person relishing some tasty comestibles. For at least this one day, let yourself off the hook. Count nothing. Judge nobody’s food choices, including your own. Let’s have food mean nothing but “substances that provide energy and are also as delicious as possible.”

115 thoughts on “Happy International No Diet Day!”

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who really enjoys cottage cheese now and again! Add some particularly lucious, juicy fruit and I’m in Gustatory Heaven.

However, now I’m tempted to try it with chocolate chip cookies, just to see. After all, cookies and milk is a classic for a reason. ; )

I might bake a cake today. Probably banana with this amazing sour cream/chocolate ganache. It’s one of my all-time favorite taste treats…and spinach may very well appear on tonight’s dinner menu. It often does because it’s probably my favorite veg and I do almost all the cooking, MWAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!

Strange that the first 2 comments about No Diet Day were about eating cake and a sticky bun (well, there was the comment about tofu, which seemed to indicate that if you weren’t eating cake you were a tofu-eater). Does No Diet Day = Eat Junk Food Day? Or is that just people’s reaction to having been on a diet that restricted food in the past?

Can’t a person celebrate No Diet Day by eating things that make her body feel good, even if that isn’t cake or sticky buns or candy or anything that is overloaded with sugar and fat and butter (mmm, butter)? And if those people in the Biggest Loser Competition feel good moving their bodies and losing weight doing it, isn’t that ok, too?

And I fully agree that restrictive diets that prescribe judgments to food don’t work, and are boring, and make you afraid of food (btdt). But for me the alternative is not “yay, cake” or “ha, I ate this certain food today and it’s ok because it’s no diet day.”

People don’t say “Its ok that I’m eating cottage cheese because it’s no diet day.” Yet the commenters seemed to imply that normally a sticky bun (or cookies) would be bad, but it is ok today because it’s NDD, which then puts a judgment on the food, and turns No Diet Day into a day where you are still judging your food but in a “see what I’m getting away with” way rather than a – “Oh good I’ll just eat what my body wants, like I do every day” way.

I’m glad I’m not the only one with cottage cheese love too! I mean seriously, it’s cheese that you eat With. A. Spoon. :D

And speaking of tasty dairy products, I just finished a lovely cup of strawberry yogurt, something that I never would have eaten when I was on WW, because I was too busy saving up points for more substantial ‘bad’ foods that would keep me from gnawing my own arm off.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: I can has reading comprehension?

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: I can has reading comprehension?

You can, yes. Others aren’t so lucky.

I just glanced at Leanna’s blog, and I’m thinking CSWD left out a bullet point, sort of a combination of #8 and #2: dieting takes over your mind and deprives your brain in a way that can make things like attention and reading comprehension really difficult.

Hey, thanks guys. I wasn’t trying to be edgy or contrarian. I struggle with a lot of these issues, and was trying to learn somethings (hence, my questions.) Maybe I’ll comment again on “No Insults Day.”

Maybe you should comment again when YOU’VE READ THE FREAKING POST. Asking questions is all very well and good, but asking me to basically reiterate what I just wrote, when I handily put it up on the internets right above the comments box, is just inane.

While you’re at it, there are a shitload of links in the post if things still aren’t coming clear. Click a few of those, read the post (not just the first and last sentence of each paragraph, okay?), and then ask questions.

Today was JUST one of these “if I skip a few meals, my waistbands will fit fine again, that’s not a diet, my metabolism won’t even notice, right?” kind of days for me, so this post was just the right thing to read! :-) Thanks!

Leanna, hi. Your problem here seems to be that you’re projecting your own issues onto what people are saying. The second comment wasn’t “about cake”, it was about cottage cheese and yummy fruit, milk, cookies, cake and spinach. You only picked out the cake. You might want to think about why you did that.

Can’t a person celebrate No Diet Day by eating things that make her body feel good, even if that isn’t cake or sticky buns or candy or anything that is overloaded with sugar and fat and butter (mmm, butter)?

Of course, and no one is saying otherwise or trying to force those foods on you, so why are you making an issue of this? Part of Fillyjonk’s post is about how she’s celebrating INDD by enjoying cottage cheese despite the diet industry’s attempts to associate such food only with Virtuous Eating, because food shouldn’t have any moral weight — for good or bad. You may have read fj’s post, but you seem to have read it through a filter of what you expected it to say rather than taking in what it actually did.

And if those people in the Biggest Loser Competition feel good moving their bodies and losing weight doing it, isn’t that ok, too?

This is the bit that tells us you’ve read very little of what’s on this site, or “read” it the same way you’ve read fj’s post today. The people doing the Biggest Loser Competition may feel good losing weight, but how are they going to feel when the weight comes back on (which it will)? Whereas focussing on building a healthy, pleasureable relationship with food and enjoying moving their bodies for their own sake, rather than to achieve a weight-loss goal, would improve their lives and health even if they never lost a pound. That’s never what the office Biggest Loser competitions are about, though.

Yet the commenters seemed to imply that normally a sticky bun (or cookies) would be bad, but it is ok today because it’s NDD, which then puts a judgment on the food, and turns No Diet Day into a day where you are still judging your food but in a “see what I’m getting away with” way rather than a – “Oh good I’ll just eat what my body wants, like I do every day” way.

Essentially: no. The whole point of FA and HAES is that no food is “bad”, because food cannot form moral intentions — it’s just food. It’s doesn’t matter whether it’s INDD, Independence Day or Tuesday; that’s always true. You’re bringing the judgement you place on those foods to the table, and projecting it on to the comments here. People are just eating what their bodies want, like they do everyday. Today is just a day to refuse extra hard to feel ashamed of it because the diet industry wants you to.

An example: I’m going to eat a cupcake today in celebration of INDD. Not because I don’t eat cupcakes normally — I do, when I feel like having one — and not because I think cupcakes are a “bad” food — I don’t believe in that shit any more — but because I want one and can have one, because I trust my body and I believe it should have what it wants. So far today that’s been muesli and apple juice, strawberries, cashew nuts, apples, grapes, cous cous, orzo pasta and roasted butternut squash. Right now it’s a cupcake.

The diet industry doesn’t want me to know that I can have that cupcake and not feel guilty about it, or that I can eat whatever I want whenever I want, not lose any weight, and not feel guilty about that either.

So I eat my cupcake in celebration that I’ve found my way out of dietcrazyworld and I know that a delicious cupcake is just a cupcake. I eat it because I want to and I can. And I eat my cupcake in the hope that someday everyone else will know this too.

Leanna, if you are really interested in learning, I would respectfully suggest working on your tone. Your comment came across as combatative rather than questioning, which puts people on the defensive. I would also suggest reading some of the archives to this site (starting maybe with the “don’t you know fat is unhealthy link on the top), I think it would answer some of your questions.

I’m not a big fan of cottage cheese. I eat it once in a while with some tomatoes (and salt and pepper), but I don’t love it. A good dairy alternative to cottage cheese is yogurt (real yogurt, not watery diet yogurt). Which I normally eat for breakfast with fruit and granola but I was out this morning.

Curd cheese is yummy, as is fromage frais, but I despise cottage cheese.

Please don’t click if descriptions of truly godawful and ill-advised diets are likely to be triggering, but, for those who are curious and laugh merrily in the face of diet dogma, here’s why cottage cheese and I are no longer on speaking terms:-

That’s the evil regime I and my parents wrecked our metabolisms with not once, but several times over the years. Cottage cheese mixed with a tablespoon of ketchup was the nearest thing you got to a gustatory jolly on this regime. I used to cheat by buying cottage cheese with (gasp!) pineapple. Nonetheless, thanks to “Doctor” Stillman I can barely look at the stuff. Even though it’s fairly inoffensive and actually tastes quite good with pineapple, it represents sheer self-hatred in a little plastic pot to me.

fillyjonk, I don’t understand why you can’t just come out and say… what you already wrote. ;-)

Oh man, I may have to pull that package of cottage cheese out of the freezer tonight. I never got into it as a kid and thought it looked gross as an adult. And then I stopped eating lactose because I decided maybe I would feel better, since I knew I was lactose intolerant and was just eating stuff anyway! But once I found out that lots of cheeses are really low in lactose, and that pressed/dry curd cottage cheese really is essentially lactose free, I was in heaven. It is the most delicious ever, especially with some sliced fruit and drizzled with honey, mmmmm. Hooray for cottage cheese!!

OMG, Stillman! That’s the one my sister and I went on, at ages approximately 12 and 13, I believe. Yes, a crash diet for a girl who’s just gone through puberty and hates how “fat” she is. (I believe I was around 120 and 5 foot 4.) Two words: Diet Jello. Diet Jello and that gnawing, desperately hungry feeling inside will make you beautiful. And they won’t screw up your metabolism, oh no, not at all.

In honor of no diet day I will be walking my fat ass to Whole Foods and eating a Cannoli (canolli? shit… spelling iz haard). I never buy them because I don’t want my coworkers to judge me for it… which is odd because I will eat other pastry goodness in their presence but this one just seems TOO indulgent.

Anyways I’m going to buy one and eat it and if anyone mentions how good or bad it is I will tell them it’s INDD so they should have one too.

For the record, I can’t stand cottage cheese. Just looking at it makes me want to run for the toilet. But I know a lot of people like to eat it.

My lunch today was turkey and tomato on a kaiser roll, some potato chips, and a Suzy-Q. With a soda too. And all of it was delicious and satisfying. So was the Fuze drink I had this morning with my apple.

I like cottage cheese occasionally but I really have to be in the mood.

When I was in high school I had extremely bad eczema and when western medicine had utterly failed me we went to a naturopath who told me to eat a half cup of cottage cheese in the morning along with a tbsp of flax seed oil. (along with prenatal vitamins and some sugar pills)

I cannot stress this enough… flax seed oil is the most vile substance on earth. I don’t even know if the plan would have worked because I could only stomach it a couple of times before I gave up completely due to the utter nastiness. *shudders*

I have to hop onboard the cottage cheese hate train. It’s just never…something about it just…it’s ooky. It makes me do the “ewwww” shiver. And yet, I’ll eat it when my mother uses it in lasagna instead of ricotta.

Yes, my mom uses it instead of ricotta in lasagna.

What can I say? At least she doesn’t put ketchup on pasta, trying to pass it off as tomato sauce.

It is okay with me if people don’t like cottage cheese. I will eat yours.

But I just remember hating it with every fiber of my being when I was choking down half a cup of it and half a peach for lunch in high school. (I ended up springboarding completely the other way by the end of high school and eating ice cream and chips or whatever for lunch, which I’m sure wouldn’t have happened if I’d just been sane enough to eat a nice sandwich and an apple and a cookie all along without hating myself for it. Similar story in middle school, by the way.) Anyway, and then I rediscovered cottage cheese as an adult with a non-antagonistic relationship with food, and it was like a whole other substance. So to me it represents all the things you miss out on if you insist on eating only diet food (because if you’re eating it because you hafta, you can’t enjoy it) or only non-diet food (because you don’t eat it in the first place).

Cottage cheese mixed with a tablespoon of ketchup was the nearest thing you got to a gustatory jolly on this regime.

GAH! I had blocked out this memory–of things my parents and siblings ate in the late ’70s/early ’80s, not anything I ever had to eat, fortunately–but you might have nailed the source of my hatred of cottage cheese, right there. IIRC, it was actually chili sauce and cottage cheese at our house, which was so repulsive-looking (and smelling) even calling up the image of it right now makes me gag a little.

Thank Maude I was just a (thin) little kid when Stillman was en vogue.

I just finished having a cheese Danish and a glass of 2% milk, because that’s what I have for breakfast almost every Tuesday, because I don’t have class until noon and can therefore chill out and enjoy my food.

It’s kind of awesome to realize that I’m celebrating No Diet Day by… not doing a damn thing different! (Except beating my brain into mush writing a final paper that compares Frankenstein to Pride & Prejudice. That’s atypical for me.)

Does anyone else mix cottage cheese with yogurt? I don’t love it on its own, but with vanilla or strawberry or peach yogurt to smooth out the texture a little… and maybe some sliced fruit on top… mmmmmm.

I don’t particularly care for cottage cheese either. I was deeply sad this morning, however, as I was running late and couldn’t stop to have a bowl of plain yogert with cut up strawberries mixed in. (I’ve had this craving for strawberries and creamy milk based products for, like, two weeks now. You have no idea how many strawberry milkshakes I’ve had in that time.)

I’m glad that other people have texture problems with food. I’ve gotten some weird looks from my family and the old saying “But if you’ll only try it, you’ll like it!”. But if you don’t have texture problems, you don’t know how hard it can be to even eat just a spoonful.

I used to love applesauce as a kid but when I got older, the texture turned me off. But now, I’m starting to like it again, and I’m okay when I buy it smooth.

I propose to make all the Shapelings the most awesome yogurt they have ever had. I hate the flavor and texture of ALL yogurt, myself, but I tried it medicinally for a while so I learned how to make seriously the best stuff you are likely to ever get your hands on.

(Well, unless you find other people who make it the way I do, or learn to do it yourself. The tricks are half-and-half, freeze-dried cultures, and long fermentation. It’s actually very easy!)

Jumping on the texture issues bandwagon. Cottage cheese makes me want to gag. My old roommate would use it in spaghetti pie and it was so absolutely vile I can’t being to describe how gross it is. Ricotta is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better.

But if you don’t have texture problems, you don’t know how hard it can be to even eat just a spoonful.

AMEN. I’m not that picky, but about 90% of the things I’m picky about (tomatoes, eggplant, cottage cheese, sushi, avocado) are mostly texture issues. (I also have a small problem with the taste of unadulterated raw tomatoes, but I’ll happily eat salsa, pasta sauce, ketchup, etc., because the taste is overwhelmed by other flavors and the texture issues are fixed.)

Another issue I have with cottage cheese is something I totally thought was just me, until I read this thread at Cute Overload and learned that many other people share my revulsion at… clusters of round things. (Named, aptly, “clusterphobia” there.) It’s kind of hard to explain if you don’t automatically get it (probably because you’ve got the same problem), but the snow globules on that dog’s legs completely gross me out, even though I’m in love with the dog. Certain patterns of 2-dimensional spots, plants with raised bumps, shoes with massage-y nubs on the soles, etc., evoke the same response; looking at them just makes me shudder, for no good reason. And cottage cheese is in that category.

(Al thinks this is hilarious and makes sure he points out every pattern of spots or bumps he ever sees, in hopes of watching me cringe.)

Oh, lordie, raw tomatoes. I can eat tiny grape tomatoes and they rock. But if I have to use a regular tomato on a salad? (Because I also like salads *grin*) I have to gut the thing. All of those little seed suspended in goo….

*shudder*

It’s like a pod full of alien eggs.

Fillyjonk, I really am glad you like cottage cheese though, because you are right – it IS sort of the ultimate symbol of diet food. Well, maybe it ties with the rice cake. And, really, it’s just a cheese.

My brother and I used to watch Saturday morning cartoons with bowls of cottage cheese in front of us for snacking. Mmmmmm. Delicious memories. No one ever told us it was diet food. When I first heard that I was like, “Really? But it’s so yummmmmmy!”

And away from cottage cheese, I think to celebrate today, I will go out of my way to make cookies. Not that I wouldn’t eat cookies any other day, but normally I can’t be bothered to actually cook. I’ll even make them from scratch! Aren’t you proud?

I adore cottage cheese. As a kid, I especially liked the large curd variety, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of that since the mid-80s. Anyway, a comfort food of mine is to chop up fruit into cottage cheese, and then scoop it up with potato chips. Mmmm.

I think the weird relationships to food fostered by diets may be one of the things I most hate about them. Not just weight-loss diets either. These days, it seems I can’t buy a quart of kefir without someone commenting on bowel regularity, and that’s just, eww. I mean, I just *like* kefir, and have since it first appeared on US shelves back in the 70s.

If Leanne is around, I wanted to just say, as the commenter about the sticky buns, that I made my comment about enjoying the food I had chosen for my breakfast – (chosen before knowing it was No Diet Day). I didn’t feel guilty about my sticky bun, it was fabulous and I was happy to eat it. I also mentioned it because it was in sharp juxtaposition to fillyjonk’s mention of cottage cheese and fruit. If I’d had a nummy breakfast of the non-sticky bun variety I probably would have mentioned it (although I don’t think I would have counted cottage cheese in that since I’m not a fan).

I’m guessing that a healthy response, at least for me, on No Diet Day is to continue to really focus on intuitive eating (that intuition is what led me to the phenominal crack-like sticky-bun from Bakesale Betty’s but will probably lead me to a lovely salad from Whole Foods at lunch).

I hope this helps with the understanding you said you were hoping for.

Send all the raw tomatoes, cottage cheese and tapioca pudding my way, I like weird textures, so I have the opposite thing!! I am cooking some pasta at the moment which I will have with some lovely garlic and onion sauce, that will be a perfect lunch!!

Hey Lexy, you know who else makes awesome cannolis? The Al Forno Ferruzza truck down near PSU (4th and College). That purple thing with the awesome pizza. They make the cannolis from scratch, although I don’t know if they have them every day, and they’re only open weekdays from 11 to 6. But, yeah. Cannolis!

Cottage cheese is not something I would choose to eat on its own, but if you drain as much water out of it as possible it’s perfectly fine in blintzes, even in pasta dishes if you don’t have any ricotta.

Oh I think I’ve seen that truck… it’s on the bus line for the 19. You know my boss is trying to talk me into running an errand on the other side of downtown… maybe I’ll volunteer :)

So I just ate the oddest but quite delicious thing, allow me to describe: leftover cheese ravioli with brown butter/herb sauce, reheated and topped with one fresh avocado. Simple and delicious (if you like those ingredients… i’m betting avocado is one of those things that people don’t like because of texture)

Also very undiety since we all know that avocados have OMG FAT GRAMZ! Plus cheese AND butter, I’m surprised I’m not dead already.

So I thought that cake was going to be metaphorical, but guess what — one of my coworkers brought in a cake! Not for INDD — because we won a bunch of awards. But still, what an appropriate day to have celebratory cake available!

I am also having lentil soup and an orange. I like that today is making me focus on how much I enjoy the food in front of me.

I hate raw tomatoes too but think it might be some kind of allergy thing. Whenever I skin and deseed them to make ratatouille, (because cooked tomatoes rule), the juice really irritates my skin and I keep having to wash my hands every two minutes.

Kate, although I don’t share your revulsion for clusters of round things I am vaguely creeped out by mushrooms growing in the wild even though I’ll happily eat them till the cows come home. It’s the way they just appear fully formed overnight as if planted by aliens…and the way oyster mushrooms encroach across a piece of dead wood. Eeeuww.

Also I have a total phobia about rhubarb in any form though I’ll grant you it looks quite attractive in its raw state but cooked? I actually can’t be in the same room as anyone eating stewed rhubarb because the mere sight of it makes me want to hurl for Britain.

Linz, I thought I was the only one who liked yogurt mixed with cottage cheese! I love the texture and I love the flavor and the creamyness of the whole mess…ok, it looks kind of funny, but I’ve never let that stop me before.

My NDD breakfast is the same as my non-NDD weekday breakfasts: cereal (half high fiber/high protein (some concessions must be made to age) and half something that tastes really good) and then some cottage cheese. I have this almost every morning – I’m a critter of habit. I don’t like having to make decisions until after I have my coffee.

I love rice cakes, too. They aren’t about the taste; they’re about the texture. I top them with butter and thin slices of a really good stinky blue cheese and it’s this crunchy/creamy snack. Or egg salad and avocado and raw tomato. (Sorry, I also love raw tomato. And cooked.)

I used to feel funny about liking foods that show up on traditional “good for you” lists, but I finally decided to hell with ’em, I like what I like. And yeah, I like ganache topped brownies, too. It is possible to like both at the same time :).

I love that NDD has coaxed so many cottage cheese lovers out into the light of day. I have always enjoyed cottage cheese liberally heaped on a rice cake. The contrast of textures, tastes and even temperatures makes my molars smile.

Still, I find myself constantly brought up short by how much of my own eating remains unwittingly colored by deeply-ingrained good-food bad-food rules. Must put lettuce on the sandwich because it’s roughage with no calories. NO! Must put lettuce on sandwich because it keeps the mayo off the peanut butter. If I don’t want lettuce, I can put it in the guinea pig cage, I don’t have to eat the damn lettuce just because it is a “good food”.

I think there must be some recovery period between diet-informed eating and intuitive eating that is called eat whatever the flip you want and the hell with the consequences eating. During the recovery period you learn what “too full” feels like; you learn what foods taste good immediately but the aftertaste will make you queasy two hours later as it lingers; you learn what foods give you energy and what foods put you to sleep. I think you need to know a lot about your own body in order to eat intuitively, and the longer you have been ruled by diets (ah, Stillman! I forgot all about the old crazy bastard) the longer it takes you to recognize your own cues that guide you to a sensible diet for the body you love. So I am still learning, still sometimes over eating, still marking my celebrations with cake and not apples, still a process and not a result.

I haven’t thought about rice cakes in a while but I remember having plain rice cakes with peanut butter in college and thinking that was probably the best food in the world. Granted I was stoned at the time.

I hate raw tomatoes too but think it might be some kind of allergy thing.

My brother went to a naturopath years ago who told him that a lot of food dislikes are actually food allergies in disguise–the body is smart that way. I have no idea if there’s actual science to back that up, but when I got tested for allergies ages ago, I found I actually do have a mild allergy to both tomatoes and potatoes*–which could be a larger issue with nightshades, which would ALSO explain my continued aversion to eggplant and the fact that I hated bell peppers until my twenties.

Having said that, I love potatoes more than just about anything in the world, like bell peppers now, and will eat tomatoes in many forms. And the other thing raw tomatoes and eggplant have in common is the seeds suspended in goo thing TR mentioned, which is probably my biggest problem with them. So the theory only goes so far, but it’s interesting.

*Fortunately, they were/are mild enough that I can simply ignore the fact, right along with my allergies to dogs, chocolate, and tobacco smoke. When I got those results back, I was just like, “You have got to be fucking kidding me! I’m allergic to EVERYTHING GOOD IN THE WORLD.”

Well, I know lactose intolerance is an enzyme deficiency, rather than an allergy, but I *snort* at the naturopath since I’m lactose intolerant (it’s genetic; see all my dad’s sisters) and I could pretty much subsist on dairy products, given a choice. As would all my dad’s aforementioned sisters.

I love cottage cheese, by the way. And rice cakes are good if you put calories on them (cheese, peanut butter, frosting, etc.).

My brother went to a naturopath years ago who told him that a lot of food dislikes are actually food allergies in disguise

Yeah, I remember my mom cooked something with currants, and my sister couldn’t stop complaining about how horrible they tasted. An hour later she broke out in hives. I’m mildly lactose intolerant and have always disliked the taste of milk. So I’m sure it doesn’t always apply, but I think it probably sometimes does.

Any food you enjoy is good food. But I do get the willies around fast food and some chain restaurant food because of the hi salt, sugar, trans fat, corn syrup, and other crap in their food. I always encourage people to eat high quality food no matter what it is. You can also make a better tastier version at home with fresh ingredients.

Ooops, posted this on the other one. I had yummy yummy thick Damiano’s sicilian pizza with cheese, mushroom, garlic, and green olives. The Pellegrino washed it down so good!!! I’m wondering what to have for dessert.

Dude, I am totally laughing, because I have been on a cottage cheese and fruit kick for the last week, and felt exactly the same way!!!! “Ooo, I must be on a diet, because I’m eating canned mango and cottage cheese” (snicker), repeat every morning or so. Today, I had a leftover taco from last night, so I must have moved on from the dairy into the meat need portion of my month (lol).

And speaking of texture, one thing that I need to get back to that I discovered awhile back – cold cooked pearled barley mixed in yogurt. Yummeeee. Seriously. It bulks up the yogurt enough to make it a real meal, and kind of gives it a neat mouth feel. I especially like it with Stonyfield Farms’ chocolate or caramel yogurt. :)

‘many other people share my revulsion at… clusters of round things. (Named, aptly, “clusterphobia” there.) It’s kind of hard to explain if you don’t automatically get it (probably because you’ve got the same problem), but the snow globules on that dog’s legs completely gross me out, ‘ kharding

I agree. Just seeing clusters gives me the shivers. Fish and ant eggs, cluster of mushrooms, raised swollen things on skin. It gives me the urge to obliterate the cluster things or avoid them. However, weirdly enough I enjoy masticating cottage cheese. It feels good to crush those slipperly little chewy globules in my teeth. They sort a pop too. But I don’t like eating/popping salmon eggs even though I love tobiko roe (small fish eggs). I like the taste of cottage cheese too.

I eat raw tomatoes like they’re apples. It totally freaks people out. I don’t really understand this, but I try not to do it around the people who’re bothered.

Thanks, fj! You can have all my share of the cottage cheese. The only semi-molten cheese I can cope with is mascarpone because it at least has the decency to pretend to be a dessert product. (Mmm, mascarpone.) Also, lentil soup and an orange sounds fucking amazing.

Lynne, I am SO there on the yoghurt front.

Still, I find myself constantly brought up short by how much of my own eating remains unwittingly colored by deeply-ingrained good-food bad-food rules.

Absolutely. I struggle all the time with “Do I want this because I shouldn’t, or because I should, or because I actually want it?” It’s frightening how hard it is to tell the difference some times.

I think the weird relationships to food fostered by diets may be one of the things I most hate about them.

Well exactly. It bothers me when people assign a “good” moral weight to my food choices and/or weight as much as when they assign a “bad” one.

I’ve lost about half a stone in the past five months as a by-product of embracing HAES and breaking some unhealthy cycles. At the start I was thrilled (because OMG WEIGHT LOSS IZ GUD YAY), but now I’m pretty ambiguous about the whole thing. Especially since a few people have commented “You’re looking thinner!” and I’m just like, “…Thanks?” I personally do think I look much better than before just because I’ve realised I can be attractive at just the weight I am and started making an effort, but when people comment specifically on my weight it feels a little bit like a violation — especially since they’re usually staring at my midsection when they say it (that’s where I put weight on and take it off first). It’s like, I didn’t know we were communally analysing my body today. Can we not? Were you doing this before and just not telling me about it? It’s creepy.

Plus, I’ve been talking about FA a bit round my friends and I feel like they aren’t taking me seriously because of that little bit of weight loss, and because I eat a lot of fruit/veg/smoothies/stirfires etc. I get the feeling from a couple of people that they think I’m just on a diet by another name and by banning calorie chat etc. around me I’m trying to sabotage them somehow. (So I can what, lose weight faster than them? Make them fat? Pretend I’m losing weight without trying? I don’t even know.)

It’s like I can’t say “Diets don’t work” and then eat a smoothie without destroying my credibility, because everyone knows THE ONLY REASON a person would ever eat a fruit smoothie is because it will help me lose weight. I mentioned that I don’t believe in good foods and bad foods to one friend and she was like, “Aye, you would say that, sitting there eating an apple.” (That was a headdesk moment.) How they’re rationalising the times I eat cake batter as a snack or four meals a day or whatnot I really don’t know, but some of them clearly do think I’m just an enormous hypocrite because I reject the diet mentality, yet eat muesli like it’s going out of fashion. They just CANNOT SEE PAST the idea of “good” food and exercise choices to the fact that I’m just doing these things BECAUSE I WANT TO, and the days I do no exercise at all and eat pizza and chips for dinner are just as valid, and just as much a part of my life. It’s really pretty frustrating.

But I suppose with all things, people will only accept/understand FA and HAES when they’re ready to.

I’m fascinated that other people have texture things like I do – clusters of round things don’t bother me, but cellular-type matrixes (e.g., a honeycomb) make my skin crawl. God knows what it is, but . . . ick.

In terms of food, I’m not a fan, generally, of smooth, globby things, including yogurt and pudding. I can handle them, but much prefer things like crunchy peanut butter that have a bit of a texture variance.

Chiming in on yogurt, cottage cheese, et al: for those of you that don’t like them, give ’em one more shot—in full fat form. I used to despise yogurt until someone (I’m fairly certain it was on this very blog) recommended the whole milk version and OMG Stonybrook Farms baby yogurt NOM. If it’s a texture thing (which I completely understand; I can’t eat mushy sweet apples or bananas but watch me dig into green ‘nanas and crunchy tart apples) then that’ll probably not change anything. But taste? Two entirely different animals, teh fat and teh fat-free.

There was a mention of yucky flaxseed oil, and may I recommend whole flaxseeds, crushed right before using? I put them in, surprise, my yogurt with Grape Nuts and frozen berries; you can also sprinkle them on salads. I like the subtle nutty flavor of it, and it’s a great source of fiber and omega-3s, if you’re into that stuff.

I’m like the only person who’s immune to the appeal of full-fat yogurt. I got some and it was good but not transcendent for me, and the increased heaviness meant that it no longer fulfilled the role I think of as the yogurt role. I’m the same way about full-fat milk. Could have something to do with the fact that too much fat messes up my innards, though.

All of the folks here who’ve had trouble with certain foods because of their texture or appearance have just led me into a relevatory moment. Here ’tis: as I read through the posts, I could feel my ire and irk rising — so much good food rejected for such trivial, frivolous reasons! How could you!

And then I thought — Aha! Well, of course. I was raised by health nuts who wouldn’t let me leave the table unless I’d eaten everything on my plate, no matter how much I hated it. I wasn’t *allowed* to reject anything, and there’s still a wizened mean part of me that wants to push the same BS on everyone else.

I had beef and barley stew with turnips, parsnips, onions, and thyme from my garden. It was yummy.

I also feel a bit funny about some of my favorite foods, I really like Grape-Nuts for instance, as long as I can eat them before they go all soggy. Soggy is yuck. But all over the box is how you can diet with them. So I just pull the bag out of the box and enjoy them. Crunchy barley flavor. I do like barley’s maltiness, I often substitute barley flour for a tenth of regular flour when I bake bread–it just tastes better. I also like Kashi Crunch, particularly with bananas and yoghurt.

And I’ve been on a real kick for peanut butter on toast lately. Love it for breakfast.

CLUSTERPHOBIA! OMG!! AND I THOUGHT I’M THE ONLY ONE!! There’s a name for it! Thanks internet! Am covered in goosebumps all over from that HORRID dog photo! (And even the goosebumps themselves make me cringe a little, which makes even myself laugh)

On the plus side, and I cannot believe I’m telling anyone this, but in the same way, malignant cells under the microscope make me cringe, while healthy cells don’t. That was, seriously, the reason why I was always top of the class in pathology. :-)

I was raised by health nuts who wouldn’t let me leave the table unless I’d eaten everything on my plate, no matter how much I hated it.

That’s what my middle school was like. I was forced to eat rhubarb by a sadistic prefect despite the fact I physically couldn’t keep it down. Consequently I have immense compassion for anyone who can’t stand the sight of any foodstuff. As a result of the Rhubarb Incident, I was the only girl in my entire school, (700 pupils), who went home for lunch. That showed ’em.

Buffpuff, I will bravely and oh-so-selflessly (giggles) save you from rhubarb any time you like. Mmmmm…rhubarb. Plus it’s fun to say!

I get the texture thing, though there are pretty much only two things in the pantheon of food choices that I’ve tried and been icked out on the texture: mushrooms and tripe. Luckily, I also don’t like the flavor of either. And it’s pretty easy to avoid tripe if you don’t like it, but mushrooms lurk everywhere waiting to pounce on my unsuspecting self.

Oh, and anyone who has problems with tapioca is welcome to send it my way. I adore tapioca. And like rhubarb, it’s a fun to say word into the bargain! I win! /

Caitlin,
Many Koreans eat raw tomatoes with a little sprinkle of sugar as dessert. It’s very very good. But you must get the real organic vine ripened juicy tomatoe and the sugar pulls out so much juice from it.

BTW, many people feel they can comment on people’s body when they lose weight. So invasive and strange to me since I consider it a personal business. I just say thanks with a blank look and move on. I lose and gain weight depending on what’s going on in my life and it’s no big deal to me. I had a catty gf try that shit on me in front of a new guy I liked. “Oh, you’ve lost so much weight.” Right, I hadn’t seen her for few weeks.

Unenlightened women can be other women and one’s worst enemy. This woman was also someone who was really unhappy with her body even though she is very attractive. She was always angry that she didn’t have the height and look of a supermodel. Needless to say we are no longer friends. She used to be fairly sane then she became crazy after one plastic surgery.

I once had a very tall slender boss tell me vehemently that she didn’t believe me when I said not everyone is into being skinny and looking like a model. I just shrugged, after all when people are brainwashed and are obsessed with competing through body image there’s nothing you can do to dissuade them. It’s just sad sad sad.

I love cottage cheese, and I’m also a Stillman Diet survivor. I don’t know how I managed to get over that, because for a long time I really did hate it.

Yogurt with grape nuts, or with granola is really good. The good Swedish granola from Ikea is fabulous in yogurt.

I had coffee yogurt once, I thought it was gross. Might have been the brand. It’s really hard to find yogurt that isn’t fat free or lowfat. I like the lowfat just fine, though. It’s more important to me to try to find sugar-sweetened instead of HFCS. (Trader Joe’s, Dannon All-Natural, Stoneyfield)

I’ve known people who have textural food issues. I don’t have ’em, fortunately, but I’ll get temporary ones from time to time if I do too much of something like cottage cheese or raw tomatoes (if there is any such thing as too much raw tomatoes) or jarred oranges.

I have the exact opposite of clusters of round things phobia! I LOVE the texture of those little globuley things: cottage cheese, caviar, sago, fresh currant grapes, the innards of finger limes (a native Australian lime with guess what texture), large couscous, pearl barley, red currants… Are there any others? Give them to me nao plz. Little bursty bubbles; it’s like eating champagne.

I like my cottage cheese on toasted crumpets, with jam or honey. It’s kind of sort of like cheesecake, only more every day breakfasty. (NB Reminicsent, yes, but not a substitute for cheesecake when you actually want cheesecake.)

I understand about food dislikes (I can’t stand bananas), but I do urge people to try things again. Childhood dislikes often pass with time; tastes change; or you may just have had things cooked badly in the past and been put off. I eat a piece of banana about once every five years; so far it’s still a big yuk. But I did grow into olives, anchovies, tomatoes and more.

Ironically, though I haven’t dieted for decades, I spent INND almost entirely without food. I wasn’t hungry before work, and it was One Of Those Days in social work, so when I realized I hadn’t eaten it was 4:30, a little late for lunch. Which just made my Wendy’s chicken sandwich with extra mayo that much tastier!

I can’t stand the texture of beans, not even to be polite as a guest. It doesn’t help that refried beans look like bloody vomit.

I have gotten over some childhood dislikes though. Hate green peppers, love all the other colors. Hated mushrooms, but gave them a secong chance and now I LOVE them unless they’re canned. I have the cellular object thing – baby corn looks like a wasp’s nest to me and freaks me out. I don’t like mushy things like bananas or avacodos (but I’m not suppossed to eat them due to a latex allergy). I HATE anything mealy, like Red Delicious apples. *shivers*

I miss whole fat yogurt and can’t find it anywhere in Grand Rapids, Mi where I live. No Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or health food stores with refrigeration units at all. I’ll eat the low fat, but fat free is GROSS.

I never ate cottage cheese as a diet food. So I still like it, although it’s a once in a long while thing. Rice cakes, on the other hand, give me flashbacks to the summer of rice cakes. It’s supportive to see other people have visceral diet flashbacks too!

I always figured that’s why I was fat. I should dislike more. My skinny stepmother who was unimpressed with my size had a lot of aversions and I tried to learn some; it didn’t stick. So it’s kind of cool to see that fat people with aversions exist. It’s a constant learning process finding these things I thought I knew about being fat which were totally … superstitious, really.

Arwen, I don’t know if you gained weight just because you like most foods. Maybe you had some intensive dieting in your early life that effected your metabolism and other issues that might have had you eat more than what you would normally eat.

Perhaps some of it is genetic and other members of your family are bigger? In many countries with normalized eating patterns, most people are pretty similar in weight without extreme fluctuations even though they all have different appetites and likes and dislikes. Right now in our society, our eating pattern is still in flux and we are still trying to figure out how to eat in our sedantary western culture. We are trying to create our tradition and we are the guinea pigs.

Be happy that you are not averse to many foods, it means you are an evolutionary superstar. Besides it’s fun to enjoy diverse types of food. BTW I like all your food dislikes, yummy.

Oh, viv, I’m totally the box-standard size for my genetics: we’re definitely inheriting our shape. We even have an adoption in the family to show it – someone that was raised by thin folk and we met her as an adult – who is the same general shape as us.

Of course, we’re also all not particularly picky eaters. (My mom even loves blue cheese and organ meats, but she hates cilantro.) So it’s interesting how I made my own “correlation is not the same as causality” error as a kid – the skinny people I knew (not genetically related) had more aversions than did my heavier genetic family.

And yep, I did do 20 years of dieting and 2 years of serious ED. My mom did, too. I’m not sure whether that changed our shape or not – previous generations were struggling for food for more prosaic reasons like the Depression and being farming folk, so you could say they were ‘dieting’, too.

SM: Here’s an awesome, if not a bit dense, explanation for why latex-sensitive individuals have reactions to things like bananas and avocados. Essentially they all have a similar protein that evokes the allergy.

Arwen,
Yep, genetics, environments, and dieting will determine people’s weight. I was raised by pretty much life style vegetarians who ate meat few times a year and my aunt and uncles didn’t care for meat and couldn’t physically handle it well.

None of my relatives except my oldest uncle even liked snacks or sweets when I was growing up. My mom’s weaknesses for sweets meant apples, asian pears, and some fruits.

However, I turned out to be an extreme carnivore/omnivore. Go figure. I guess nurture and genetics are sometimes 50/50 but sometimes one has more influence more than the other. I followed my father’s genes even though I was close to and raised mostly by my mother’s side of the family. Loved snacking as a kid which puzzled my family quite a bit. They used to talk amongst themselves that I was a carbon copy of my dad. Genetics is amazing.

But one thing about nurture is that now that I am older, I think I am eating more like my mother’s side and eating a lot more vegetables than I did as a child and as a teen. So, it feels like it is always a push and pull between nurture and genetics from my experience.

If you throw in trauma, unhealthy family environments, dieting, etc… yep, our eating pattern can get messed up. I’ve come to terms with my appetite and now enjoy my appreciation for food and good living. I am also blessed that my body is healthy and will do what I want it to do. For me, good living means walking and doing light exercises as well to keep me feeling good.

I love cottage cheese. I don’t necessarily like it with fruit, but all on it’s own it’s a pretty neat thing. I never thought of it as diet food, though cottage cheese and fruit does remind me of my grandmother. The woman had the same lunch every day while watching Perry Mason. My parents were always appalled that she had a tv in her dining room because, OMG eating while watching tv causes TEH FATZ. The woman was rail thin all the years I knew her, kind, artistic, funny, and …kinda dotty. I loved her a lot, and I’d much rather think about her while eating my lunch than how many calories and how much fat is in my food. Especially not about whether or not my cottage cheese is virtuous.

Oh, no kidding! The first time I had a full-fat yogurt was Brown Cow brand, plain vanilla, that I bought for the first young’un on advice from a friend. FREAKING LAYER OF CREAM ON THE TOP, PEOPLE. That had to be STIRRED IN. Heaven in a little plastic cup. And I hate anything more than skim milk, so I have no idea what the fascination with the milkfat is, there.

I’ll add another voice to the weirded-out-by-certain-textures bunch! I’m OK with smooth soup like puree or broth and I’m OK with thick stew, but anything in-between (liquidy soup with a bunch of stuff floating in it) I have hated since I was tiny! My mom still gets a giggle out of the fact that at age 5 or so I told her I didn’t want to eat anything with “blumps.” Cottage cheese and fruit on the bottom yogurt also have blumps, btw. And I’m SURE tapioca pudding or bubble tea are the EPITOME of blumps. Never tried ’em, no shock.

Funny, viv – I was also raised vegetarian (vegan for awhile) and am now a meat-lovin’ fool. Growing up the way I did does mean that I am used to a lot of veggies and they’ve always stayed the cornerstone of my diet – but my word do I love meat.

The only soup I can stomach is plain noodle soup in broth, and tomato basil soup. Chowders and any other type of soup with things in it I can’t do. I tried broccoli cheese soup and my stomach let me know the rest of the day it was not pleased.

For those that don’t like raw tomatoes, give them to me. Along with fresh corn on the cob and fresh raw lettuce and spinach, I love to eat them, along with grape tomatoes.